California attorney general Kamala Harris welcomed the death knell for the Kill the Gays ballot initiative.
Photograph: Robert Galbraith/REUTERS

A proposed “shoot the gays” ballot initiative in California that called for the execution of state residents on the basis of their sexuality has been quashed by a judge, sparing voters from the possibility of having to debate it during fall elections.

Judge Raymond Cadei of the Sacramento superior court wrote that the measure, called the “Sodomite Suppression Act”, was “patently unconstitutional” in a ruling filed on Monday and released on Tuesday.

He added that forcing the state attorney general, Kamala Harris, to prepare the measure to collect voter signatures would be “inappropriate, waste public resources, generate unnecessary divisions among the public and tend to mislead the electorate”.

Huntington Beach lawyer Matt McLaughlin filed the proposal in February but did not appear in court to defend it and has maintained silence on the matter. It called for “any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head, or by any other convenient method”, and forbid gays and lesbians and anyone supporting gay rights from holding public office.

Harris, who is running for the US Senate, said: “This proposed act is the product of bigotry, seeks to promote violence, is patently unconstitutional and has no place in a civil society.

“I applaud the court’s decision to block its title and summary. My office will continue to fight for the rights of all Californians to live free from hatred and intolerance.”

In California any citizen can file a proposed ballot measure for a $200 fee – although state legislators are in the process of increasing the cost. The attorney general is then charged with creating a title and 100-word summary for the measure so that signatures can be gathered. Harris filed a motion earlier this spring asking to be excused from moving the Sodomite Suppression Act to the signature-gathering phase, where it would have needed to collect more than 350,000 supporters in 180 days to make it on to the November ballot.

Historically California judges have been hesitant to step into the initiative process, viewing it as the right of citizens to present ideas. When Harris filed her request asking for the court to intervene experts questioned whether she had legal standing to do so, although the violent nature of the proposal made it an extreme case. That made this week’s ruling somewhat unexpected and a possible precedent.

Professor Jessica Levinson of Loyola Law School said: “I am a little surprised because of the tradition, in California in particular, that we wait until measures are passed before ruling on their constitutionality. What we have here is a judge who is laying out a ruling saying that there is no world in which this is valid, so we are not going to waste our time. So it’s a very strong statement from both the attorney general and the judge.”

State legislators, many who had been watching the case closely, also weighed in on Monday’s ruling. “The court has brought an appropriate end to this disturbing episode,” said California assembly speaker Toni Atkins. “LGBT Californians shouldn’t be threatened and our initiative process shouldn’t be hijacked. Let’s hope it’s the last time our system is abused to promote the political equivalent of toxic waste.”